Photography’s 67 Million Dollar Year
As the international art market teeters on the edge of a downturn, photography is enjoying a steady climb upwards.
It may have been two years since a standout sale broke into the list of the top ten most expensive photographs and nine years since the number one record was broken, the overall view of photography at auction is favourable. In the last decade, there have been twenty-five photographs sold at auction for over $1 million, with two sold this year alone.
Using the Top 50 Most Expensive Photographs Sold At Auction as a source for comparison, the last ten years have shown a consistent stream of record-breaking sales. Every year since the turn of the decade at least two photographs have entered the top 50 list, with many artists entering the hallowed database for the first time.
In 2017 Man Ray entered the Top 50 for the first time with two photographs (Portrait of a Tearful Woman for over $2.1 million and Noire et Blanche for over $3.1 million), proceeded in 2018 with the entry of Helmut Newton for the first time (with Panoramic Nude with Gun, Villa d’este, Como at $981,884) and Diane Arbus (with Identical twins, Roselle, N.J. 1966 for $732,500) as only the second female artist to enter the list.
the last ten years have shown a consistent stream of record-breaking sales
2019 has continued this trend with a global auction record for El Lissitzky whose Self-Portrait (‘The Constructor’) sold for over $1.2 million and saw the early 20th century artist enter the list for the first time. 2019 saw three entries into the Top 50 List, from the aforementioned El Lissitzky, as well as Helmut Newton and Edward Weston.
The most expensive photograph of the year was Newton’s Sie Kommen, Paris (Dressed and Naked), which sold at Phillips New York for over $1.8 million – over $800,000 more than the most expensive print the previous year (also a Helmut Newton image), in an auction that saw a combined sales total of over $10.4 million – $6 million more than the highest sales total of 2018.
In 2018 twenty-five auctions resulted in a combined sales total of over $47.6 million. In 2019 twenty-five auctions resulted in a combined sales total of over $67 million. Though this upturn in prices is a small snapshot of photography sales, it does reflect a wider trend particularly as more auction records are broken each year.
So perhaps as buyers look to diversify their investments within the art market, the long-regarded alternative art form of photography is proving to be a successful alternative investment too?
Read the latest updated and revised 50 Most Expensive Photographs Sold at Auction and a review of 2019 in photography auctions in the Photography At Auction Digest, Volume II on Amazon – available as a paperback or as a
Image credit: Norwood